


Memories of Your Bones

by KalinaAnn



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Past Character Death, SEP AU, SEP!Reaper
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-10-28 16:28:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10834986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KalinaAnn/pseuds/KalinaAnn
Summary: Maybe it’s strange that Jack doesn’t seem to know where Gabriel goes during the day. Most of the time he chalks it up to the fact that they’ve got him hauling ass through training all day every day. It’s not a particularly insistent thought on his mind, but returning to his room each night has him wondering where he goes. Odd that he never sees Gabriel around the facility, even odder that he hardly ever saw him in their shared living space. If at all.





	1. 1.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a warning that the rating is going to go up to M at the very least, if not E, for violence and sexual content in the next few parts.

The old wing of the facility is haunted.

There’s a figure that stalks the halls, skulking through the shadows. Grabbing recruits from empty corridors, phasing through the floor with an iron grip around them. Pulling them through boarded up doors long closed off from lack of use by the program. Sometimes they just disappeared out of thin air. Plucked right off the ground as if the action hadn’t needed a second thought.

It’s always new recruits.

They say it’s the ghost of an old senior officer that was killed in action during the program. He punishes the recruits when the program won’t. The recruits that are in danger of holding their team back with their inability to keep up - something that could lead to much larger problems. In life, he had always been good at nipping problems in the bud before they could truly blossom. In death, it’s still a habit put into practice often.

That’s what they say, anyway.

Luckily for Jack Morrison, who had been assigned quarters in the old wing with a handful of other recruits, he’s not superstitious.

To Jack, the wing looks normal enough, if not evidently old. He’s never actually seen a ‘haunted house’ aside from the ones featured in locally run fairs he used to go to as a child each October. If he had been in the presence of a haunted house, he hadn’t noticed.

Anyway, ghosts don’t exist.

Many of the rooms had lost their use once the facility had finished its expansion. Apparently they had brought in enough recruits, 15 total, to warrant reopening the old wing.

Of the fifteen new recruits, six including Jack, had been assigned the old wing. Some of them, who had already fallen prey to some of the older officers, were already muttering about  _ ghosts _ as they located their rooms. They’re impressionable, he understands that - hell, he’s hard to admit it, but so is he. Ready to listen to the next person in uniform willing to drop a breadcrumb of information if it means keeping the smallest edge in the program. 

He chalks it up to the excitement coursing through their veins. Just the thought of being here makes his skin jolt with excitement. To make it into the program is wonderful, top ten is something else entirely.

Really, the only downside Jack could think of is  _ perhaps _ the rooms in the newer expansion are nicer. Bigger windows to let in more light. Thicker walls maybe, as the handful of them walking through the halls could hear every creak and groan the framework makes. But maybe that’s just his optimism speaking.

Further inspection of the wing reveals two sets of stairwell closed off that lead up to the second floor. He passes through a small, dimly lit kitchen with dull blue tiles that thankfully has a working fridge. Though, with a fully functioning mess hall running in the new expansion, Jack doubts many of them are going to find use in it. It’s a nice touch, regardless.

Room  _ 26B _ isn’t that hard to find - his room is across from the floor’s supply closet, sitting between two other rooms near the end of the hallway. At the very least, he’s one of the closest to the single window brightening up the gloomy hallway.

When Jack steps through the door, he backs up, double checking the room number to confirm ‘ _ yes, this is 26B’ _ as he didn’t expect to find a man perched on the couch, far too engrossed with the book in his hands to notice Jack.

That, or he really  _ did _ hear Jack come in and is just ignoring him.

“Uh,” Jack starts, unsure of whether to knock or not considering it is  _ his _ room. “Hey.”

Dark brown eyes and a face etched with scars across it - Jack is fairly sure the goatee is hiding many more. He doesn’t look too much older than Jack, though he does look as if he’s been through the wringer and back.

Definitely an officer; he looks too battleworn not to be. That, and you don’t get  _ that _ huge without being pumped full of the program’s mystery serum. Or steroids.

Not that Jack is anything to scoff at, he still has a respectable amount of muscle on his frame, but he  _ does  _ have to remind himself that staring at someone you just met’s arms is considered impolite to most.

An amused smile meets the confused look on his face.

“They didn’t tell me I’d be assigned a roommate,” Jack continues.

“Are you complaining?” his apparent roommate asks, though there’s little hostility behind it. 

“Not really,” Jack shakes his head. “Just surprised, that’s all.”

Dropping the duffel carrying what little belongings Jack took with him on the floor, he suddenly remembers his manners. Sticking his hand out, he offers the man a friendly smile. 

“Jack Morrison,” he says. “I guess we’ll be rooming together.” He’s not going to mention how he finds it odd they stuck a recruit with an officer.

Setting his book to the side, the man stands up before taking Jack’s hand in his own. He’s around the same height as Jack, if not a couple inches taller, but that isn’t the first thing Jack notices.

The first thing he notices is how  _ cold _ this man’s hand is. It’s as if he had just come back inside from shovelling a driveway in the middle of the winter. Cold, but very solid.

“Gabriel Reyes,” the man, Gabriel, says in return. “I guess you just got lucky.”

Turning, he motions to the very small hallway the room allow. The bathroom is the obvious one, with the door open just enough for Jack to peek in. From where he’s standing he can spot a small sink and a toilet next to it.

“Room on the right is mine,” Gabriel says before sitting himself back down on the couch. He doesn’t bother helping Jack get situated in his room. “The doors don’t lock.”  _ So knock first, alright?  _ It goes without saying.

Jack had gathered that much already, the program didn’t seem very keen on respecting the privacy of their soldiers in the making. It’s nothing he hadn’t expected, however, having shared a room with three other people back in Basic. 

The room isn’t particularly big, just large enough to fit a single bed, night table, and a dresser, which Jack ignores in favour of tossing his duffel to one of the corners. There’s a single window on the wall adjacent to his bed, and from it he has a clear view of the entrance of the facility where the memorial sits. He never got a particularly good look at it in passing, but even from here he can see the mass of names etched into the obsidian. 

Jack finds Gabriel leaning against the frame of his door, watching him unpack. He’s being scrutinized, he realizes, if Gabriel's wandering gaze is anything to go by. He guesses he can’t blame Gabriel too much for being curious. After putting away the rest of his clothes in the small dresser offered in the corner of the room, Jack finally turns to his roommate.

“Everything alright?”

Gabriel doesn’t answer right away, evidently still deep in thought.

“They must be getting desperate,” Gabriel finally concludes with a small smirk, arms crossed over his chest. “If they’re sending kids down this way. What, no room left in the new wing?”

Jack is sure it isn’t meant as an insult towards him, but he’s still a little surprised at Gabriel’s annoyance.

“Kid?” Jack repeats, brow raised. “You don’t look that much older than me, Reyes.”

“No, I’m sure you worked your ass off to get here,” Gabriel waves him off. “Let me guess, top five, straight from Basic?”

“Top ten actually,” Jack corrects. The grimace Gabriel makes doesn’t go unnoticed.

“Ten, huh? Guess they’re getting desperate.”

“There’s fifteen of us in total.”

That’s cause enough to have Gabriel really shaking his head, lifting himself from the door frame before heading back to the living room. Despite himself, Jack finds himself laughing quietly to himself.

The recruits are given a day’s time to recuperate and settle in, a blessing really, considering the arduous training they’re about to be subjected to during the months to come. They start injections first thing tomorrow morning. Jack tries not to think too much about the side effects too much - apparently ranging from mild headaches to hemorrhaging. They may as well have mentioned ‘spontaneous death’.

Then again, potential risks were never a secret.

The rest of the day for Jack is spent roaming the older wing, not particularly interested in the new expansion just yet. It’s an extremely large facility, of course, Jack should probably go out of his way to figure out where everything is so he’s not quite so lost. But, he doesn’t feel the need for it. Given the fact that most of his time will be spent there, he’s sure he’ll have plenty of time to figure out where everything is eventually. Mostly, he’s curious about the floors closed off above them. Maybe he’ll ask Gabriel about it.

When dinner rolls around, Jack decides the proper thing to do is to ask Gabriel to join him. If they’re rooming together for the rest of Jack’s stay, he may as well try to get along with the guy. Not that Gabriel seems like the kind of guy that would be particularly hard to get along with - just a little prickly.

At the first knock at Gabriel’s door, there’s no answer.

“Hey, Reyes?” Jack starts, fist just hovering over the door. “Was wondering if you wanted to show me around. Grab a bite to eat.”

Again, there’s no response. Jack lowers his hand and his shoulders slump just a little bit. Just a little disappointed.

Gabriel probably isn’t even in his room, Jack figures. Through the paper thin walls, he can’t hear him at all because  _ of  course _ he would be too busy to show a recruit around. He was likely already at the mess hall having dinner with some other officers.

Before he could let himself feel silly, Jack gathers it was worth the effort. You can’t go wrong with being friendly.

Of the handful of friends Jack had made back in Basic, he’s thankful at least one of them made it into the program with him. It’s not hard far Jack to find Gavin, the young man evidently saving him a spot across from him at one of the tables.

“Heard you got hit with the shit stick,” Gavin jabs, not looking up at Jack from where he’s prodding at his food with a fork.

“What do you mean?” Jack asks, having no problem with digging into his food. Even in Basic, Gavin had been a picky eater. Then again, Jack had neglected to eat for most of the day, his hunger likely masking the tasteless mound given to him.

“The old quarters,” Gavin clarifies. “Apparently there’s so many of us they had to reopen the place just to make room.”

Jack shrugs. “It’s not so bad. A little old but, a little history never hurt anyone. Roommates a pretty alright guy, at least.”

Gavin frowns a little at that, pulling the fork from his mouth and pointing the tip in Jack’s direction. “Roommate?” he repeats. “I thought the whole point of opening the old wing was to have enough space for  _ all _ of us, y’know, so we’re not sharing.”

“What? You didn’t get roomed with anyone?”

“No. No one on my floor did.”

“Huh.” Jack slumps back a little in his chair. He’s not about to go file complaints, but after sharing a room with other people for so long, a room to himself would have been nice. At the very least, there are walls between him and Gabriel.

“I mean, I doubt it’ll matter in a couple of months,”Gavin continues with a small shrug. “Injections are supposed to be brutal. Two of you will have your own rooms in no time.” 

“They can’t be  _ that _ bad.”

“Oh, yeah they can,” Gavin assures him with a small nod. He leans in, lowering his voice as if he’s ready to share a secret. “Heard from an officer on the upper floor they don’t think more than half of us are gonna make it. Said she even saw one of her own vomit up his lungs after the first month.”

Jack frowns a little bit at that. “You can’t vomit up your lungs, Gavin. You can’t vomit any of your organs.” 

“With the shit they’re gonna be pumping us full? You can’t be positive.” He seems so sure.

While Gavin pokes at the brown, chocolate flavoured mass being excused for dessert, he doesn’t miss the way Jack’s eyes wander over his shoulder, to his side. It’s apparent he’s looking for someone, though not as discreet as he may think he’s being. Cheek resting against his knuckles, Jack really thinks he’s being nonchalant - it doesn’t slide past Gavin.

“Who’re you looking for?” Gavin finally asks after prying the tip of his fork into his dessert.

Jack looks a little surprised for a moment, straightening his back as if ready to deflect the topic. Sighing, he drops whatever he was about to say. “Can’t find my roommate.” 

“You playing mother hen already?” Gavin asks knowingly, having shared a bunk with Jack for months.

“No way.” Gabriel looked as if he could take care of himself blindfolded and tied up - hell, from where Jack is standing, it probably isn’t an exaggeration. “The guy just disappeared before I could ask him if he wanted to grab a bite to eat. I’m curious, that’s all.”

Gavin only shrugs. “Not like he can go very far.”

Gavin is absolutely right.

* * *

 

Deep red splotches bloom across Jack’s pale skin, along his shoulders and across his wrists. Though his thighs are covered by his sweats, he’s sure the same splotches are littered across there as well. He can still feel the ghost of the metal sitting beneath his skin, cold before warming up with whatever they pumped into his veins. That’s when the sting came in, burning hot under his skin.

Each time he lifts his arms, his veins and arteries feel as if they’re being pulled taut to his core. He’s sure it’s all in his head - oversensitive from lying in the medical bay, poked and prodded. Suffice to say, he’s had much better mornings.

No cases of spontaneous death yet. That’s always a good sign.

At the very least, Jack feels a bit battered. Breakfast isn’t the most appetizing thing right now, though he knows he should probably force down  _ something _ if he doesn’t want to regret it later.

When Gavin walks out of the medical bay, he looks as if he had just stared death in the eyes with how pale he is, skin in stark contrast to his dark hair, slick with sweat. Matching splotches litter his arms, though he had neglected to take off the small, square bandaids pressed over the needle pricks. When he looks up at Jack, his big brown eyes are wide.

Jack gives him a sympathetic smile as he reaches an arm around his friend to keep him from swaying off his feet. Careful of the bandaids, Jack offers a reassuring pat to his arm.

“We have to do that  _ how many times a month?” _ Gavin finally chokes out, concentrating on working one foot after the other.

The medical bay, like everything else in the facility, is part of the newer expansion. Jack still hadn’t gotten around to exploring, having gone to bed the night before much earlier than necessary in preparation for injections. Gavin’s room is on the second floor, and, thankfully, Gavin doesn’t seem too traumatized to show Jack which way to go.

“Three,” Jack supplies. Never once has Jack had a problem with injections - they don’t particularly bother him - but there are other things he’d much rather do than become a human pincushion three times a month. Especially if the symptoms were rumoured to get nastier with time.

“Three,” Gavin repeats with a shaky voice. “Joy.”

“It’ll get better,” Jack offers. “Eventually it’ll be just like going for a checkup.”

Gavin snorts a small laugh at that and it makes Jack smile just a little bit. They both know it’s bullshit.

“Thanks man, but there’s no getting used to that.”

The nausea following the dizziness is starting to catch up to Jack as they work their way to the second floor where Gavin’s room is. Thankfully, they don’t have to navigate through another set of winding hallways to find his room before either of them collapse. Jack gets Gavin situated in his bed with little trouble.

“You sure you’re alright getting back to your room alone?” Gavin asks after propping himself up against his headboard as best he can, as if he could be any help in his current state. Jack waves him off with a small smile.

“I’ll be fine,” he insists. “If I collapse someone’ll find me.”

The joke gets a weak laugh from Gavin who’s doing his best to steady his head from spinning off his shoulders. Jack leaves the room, which is strikingly similar to his own. Apparently the program liked to keep things consistent.

Passing the mess hall, the idea of grabbing a quick bite to eat crosses his mind once more, but the thought of even a cup of coffee makes his stomach churn. There are still a couple people sitting here and there, some better off than others, nibbling on whatever they can manage to keep down in their zombie-like state.

Back in the older wing, Jack makes it as far as the kitchen before a dizzy spell hits him like a truck. Room suddenly spinning around him, bile rising in his throat, he manages a hard breath before he goes down to the cold tiles. They’re cool against his overheating skin, the impact of the fall hardly registering in his mind as he sucks in another painful lungful of air, chest tight.

“Hey!” The voice sounds miles away before there are hands pulling weakly at Jack’s shoulders. He makes no effort to lift his face off the tiles. “You alright?”

Squeezing his eyes tight, Jack gives a weak nod before pushing his hands beneath his chest. As enticing as the idea sounds, perhaps he shouldn’t spend the rest of the day resting on the kitchen floor.

“I’m fine,” he manages, allowing them to help him up to his feet. Glancing up, he recognizes her as one of the recruits brought in with him. He thinks she might have a room a couple doors down from his. 

“That bad, huh?”

“Piece of cake.” Rolling his shoulders, he feels as if he’s going to collapse again.

At the very least, Jack is coherent enough to direct her to his room where he’s dumped onto the couch. When she asks him if he’ll be fine, though she doesn’t look much better, he waves her off. Telling her he won’t be alone when his roommate comes around. She gives him a strange look, but he can already assume she’s thinking the exact same thing Gavin did. 

Jack got stuck with the shit stick - apparently the only recruit in the program to get a room assigned to him attached to a roommate. It’s not nearly as bad as everyone must think it is.

When she leaves, Jack can hear her shuffling down the hallway, likely to spend the rest of her day the exact same way he is right now.

Time passes, though Jack isn’t sure just how much exactly when the headaches dull themselves to a soft thrum in his skull, finally allowing him to nap. When he  _ does _ wake up there’s a bitter taste in his mouth and he’s got a head filled with cotton.

There’s also a cold palm resting on his face. Part of him tells him to brush the hand away - he’s sweaty and gross - but the part of him that enjoys the cooling touch wins him over. Groaning, Jack rests his forehead against the hand.

“Injection day, huh?” Gabriel pulls his hand away.

“What makes you say that?” Rolling to his side, Jack lifts himself off the couch just a bit to look over at Gabriel who doesn’t look nearly as beaten and battered as half of the facility. “Why don’t you look like shit?”

Gabriel only offers a small shrug. “It’ll take a lot more than a couple needles to bring me down.” Tapping Jack’s thigh, he sits himself down on the couch once he scoots back. There’s a brown bag placed next to Jack’s head. Thankfully, Gabriel holds onto the coffee that Jack will very likely spill in his current state.

“Try to get something down,” Gabriel tells him with a little more sympathy. “You’re probably gonna puke it up later but, least you’ll have something to puke.”

Jack thanks him as he attempts to sit up with his back against the couch, making enough room for the two of them to sit comfortably. There’s a bagel and a small packet of jam in the bag - thoughtful, as far as the food here goes.

“How long was I out?” Jack asks after a mouthful.

“Most of the day. You missed dinner.”

“Damn. And the only thing you thought to bring me was a bagel?”

“And jam,” Gabriel snorts. “Be happy I thought to bring you anything at all. It would suck to have your skinny ass starve on my couch.”

“That happen often? Recruits dying on your couch?”

Gabriel slaps him on the back in what is supposed to be a friendly gesture, not as careful of his bruising as Jack would like.

“Might as well try to sleep the rest of the side effects off,” Gabriel tells him, getting up from the couch. “That shit only gets worse at night.”

And, it does. It get’s a lot worse.

Jack tries to take Gabriel’s advice and sleep through the worst of it, but the sharp pain in his lower back, chest and stomach  eventually finds him hunched over the shared bathroom toilet. Dry heaving after spewing whatever he had managed to force down hours before.

Clinging to the toilet bowl, cold porcelain pressed to his bare chest. Jack doesn’t even hear Gabriel walk into the cramped bathroom, placing a blanket over his shoulders. Hardly processes the warmth before there’s a hand over his forehead, cold as ice. Jack flinches back, ducking his head into his sweaty arm.

“Think you need a pair of gloves, Reyes,” Jack finally manages, much harsher than he intended with the pain wracking his body. Gabriel stays knelt at his side, seemingly unbothered, if anything, concerned.

“Your hands feel like death,” Jack adds quietly after steadying his breathing. “Think I’d know right now.”

Standing up, Gabriel leans towards the sink before returning with a glass of water. Nodding his thanks, Jack swishes a bit of it around his mouth.

“It’s Gabriel,” he finally says.

Jack turns his head, giving him a questioning look. Stomach clenching again with enough force to have him heaving, he vaguely wonders if it really is possible to puke up an organ.

“Just ‘Gabriel’ is fine,” he tells him, the sentence punctuated with a short exhale. Jack wonders if the injections really affected him as little as he claims.

“Gabriel,” Jack repeats, without much commitment. Helped back to his feet with Gabriel’s arms around his shoulders. Swaying, just a little bit before his side is pressed to him.

“I’d tell you it gets better from here but I’d be lying.”

Laughing, though it’s forced and a little painful coming up through his raw throat, Jack surprises them both. At the very least, they make it to the side of Jack’s bed where he all but drops onto the messy sheets. 

“ _ You _ look fine,” Jack says. “That has to be a testament to something, right?”

“It just means I’m better at hiding it.” Jack isn’t quite sure if he’s joking, but he scoots over just a bit, giving Gabriel enough room to sit on the side of the bed. Gabriel scrubs a hand down his face, tugging at his beard before leaning forward to rest his elbows on his thighs. “They don’t even have you guys holed up in the medbay yet.”

“You really know how to cheer a guy up on his deathbed.”

“You’re not going to die, Jack.” Gabriel sounds so sure, his small laugh lightening the mood just a little bit despite the feeling of cold death coiling in Jack’s stomach.

“Are you trying to tell me this gets worst?”

“Before it gets better.” Honest. At least Jack can trust Gabriel to not coddle him. “They gotta break you a little before they build you back up.”

“And if it doesn’t work?” Which Jack knows it doesn’t always. They all knew the risks before joining the program, yet being nearly paralyzed by pain has a funny way of forcing him to face the reality of his agreement.

“Then they’ve got fifteen tries. They’ll get a couple super soldiers out of your lot.”

Jack is silent for the moment, and when he speaks, it’s mostly to fill the silence. To keep Gabriel at his side because despite having only met the man yesterday morning, his presence is comforting.

“You’re talking from experience.” It’s not exactly a question if Jack already knows the answer.

“Does that really surprise you?” 

Perhaps it shouldn’t. Gabriel’s hand reaches out once more to feel Jack’s forehead, brushing some of his hair away from his forehead.

It isn’t in Jack’s intentions to fall asleep, but the moment he closes his eyes at Gabriel’s touch, the exhaustion weighs him down like a submerged anchor. When he wakes up the next morning with a twinge in his back and the taste of oil in his mouth, he doesn’t even remember hearing Gabriel leave the room. 

* * *

 

Maybe it’s strange that Jack doesn’t seem to know where Gabriel goes during the day. Most of the time he chalks it up to the fact that they’ve got him hauling ass through training all day every day. It’s not a particularly insistent thought on his mind, but returning to his room each night has him wondering where he goes. Odd that he never sees Gabriel around the facility, even odder that he hardly ever saw him in their shared living space. If at all. 

The two times Jack has seen Gabriel in the past two weeks since the first day of injections, both times had been in the middle of the night. Standing there in the center of the hardly functional kitchen just down the hallway.

The taps, Jack had found, stopped working a while ago - if they had ever worked at all - but everyone in the older wing only ever used the kitchen to store snacks in the fridge. That’s all it’s really good for.

Jack hadn’t even seen Gabriel standing there in the kitchen at first, blending in the shadows. Perhaps it’s the fact that he was half asleep. Opened the door, the dim fridge light hardly illuminating the small kitchen, but there was Gabriel. Standing by the sink, gripping the edges of the cold metal.

Jack would have had to nudge past him at the very least. Or just go right through him.

Gabriel hadn’t responded when Jack turned around, a leftover sandwich half unwrapped in his hand. Hadn’t responded when Jack called out to him. There had been a distant look in those brown eyes when Jack had placed a concerned hand on the man’s shoulder, cold to the touch though that isn’t much of a surprise at that point.

The morning after Jack couldn’t find Gabriel anywhere. It had been the last time he had seen him, and though he knows he knows Gabriel would laugh at him for his worry, he still finds it lingering in the back of his skull each night before he falls asleep.

It's not something Jack had spoken about out loud to anyone, but Gavin seemed to have come to the same thought as well. Had voiced these curiosities in the shower after a sparring match between the two of them. Gavin didn’t ask too much about Gabriel - he hasn’t even  _ met _ the guy - but every so often it seems he suddenly remembers that Jack is the one person in the entire facility to get roomed with someone else.

“You’ve gotta see the guy every night though, right?” Gavin had pointed out when Jack had mentioned his roommate’s lack of presence. “I mean, officer or not, lights out means lights out.” The program had been fairly strict about that rule, among others of course.

Jack only shrugged. “The guy moves around like a ghost and they only monitor my wing once or twice a night. I’d be  _ really _ surprised if he ever got caught.”

“But still. If he’s out wandering around every night I don’t even wanna think about how much sleep that guy gets. He’s gotta be dead every morning.” 

Jack only shrugged. It wasn’t really an answer but then again, Gavin didn’t care too much on a personal level to push the subject.

However there’s still a lingering thought nagging the back of Jack’s mind settled right next to the worry he harbours for his roommate. Something he’s found a little odd though hadn’t put too much thought to it. There’s no denying that Gabriel’s body temperature, among other things, is concerning. The fact that Gabriel seems to space out at points in time, lost in some other world, though considering their career choice, there are some fairly reasonable things Jack could pin the blame on.

When he’s lying in bed at night half asleep, Jack could hear footsteps from down the hallway. He could hear his neighbour shuffling around in their room, tossing in their bed. He can hear them get up and grab a glass of water in the middle of the night, hear the tap turn on and then off. He can’t, however, hear Gabriel coming in and out of the shared living space. Even with their rooms right next to each other,  he can’t even tell if the man is still there. More often than not, he assumes Gabriel leaves for the night.

The less Jack sees Gabriel around, the more he gathers he’s stepping out of line. After the first round of injections, there had been three emptied rooms in the newer wing down Gavin’s hallway. It’s probably for the best if Jack avoided getting attached to the man who he hardly saw anyway.

And yet, it’s not nearly as easy to push the thoughts to the back of his head and forget about them, especially during the rare day that Jack does find himself seated on the couch next to Gabriel as if the man hadn’t been missing for the past two days. Conversation always came easily, and Jack doesn’t push or prod, overstep his boundaries. It’s an easy routine to fall into.

No matter how many days Gabriel seems to disappear, he always seems to reappear from thin air after injection day. Seemingly unaffected, though he’d say otherwise. More often than not, he’s the reason Jack even makes it back to his bed after the nausea subsides. Much more preferable than sleeping on the cold bathroom floor, which he had suspected would happen anyway.

Perhaps it’s these few instances that fuel Jack’s reasoning to stand at Gabriel’s door, knowing he may as well be halfway across the facility if he even  _ is  _ there. Knocking once, he gets no answer. Not even a small shuffle to figure out if Gabriel is even there or not. Thinking back to the first time, it’s nearly enough to have Jack turn right around once more, shaking the silly idea away.

Instead, he finds himself turning the knob. There’s definitely curiosity encouraging the action, though Jack was never one to snoop around in someone else’s personal space. The part of his brain that tells him it’s wrong and invasive instead uses his previous fears over Gabriel as justification.

When the door swings open, he expects to find a room identical to his. Small bed, small window and very few belongings. Instead it’s empty. The room isn’t even a bedroom.

It’s a closet, the shelving taking up the space within clear of any towels and blankets that should’ve been there. Jack slams the closet door closed when a deep voice rumbles almost threateningly behind him.

“I never took you for a rat.” Jack realizes he had mistaken the slight irritation in Gabriel’s voice as a threat. Very likely his guilty conscience at work. There’s a silence that passes between the two as Jack slowly looks from the closed closet back to Gabriel. The man had backed up just a little bit to avoid crowding him into the door.

“These rooms don’t have two bedrooms, do they?” Jack finally asks, though the thought is at the very tail end of his confusion. Evidently, Gabriel doesn’t have to answer that. Instead, he gives Jack a curious look - searching, even. Held tilted to the side as he crosses his arms before taking another small step back.

Question after question flies through Jack’s head, many of them leading to the doubt he hadn’t realized he harboured towards his roommate. Perhaps Gabriel isn’t part of the program at all and he’s been hanging out with a complete stranger taking shelter in his room the whole time. Though, with the facility’s security, the rational side of his mind is telling him that’s fairly unlikely.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” The way Gabriel says it is casual, so out of the blue that Jack doesn’t know how to respond for the moment. He shakes his head.

“No,” Jack answers.

Gabriel gives him a small nod. “That’s good to hear.” 

The door swings open behind Jack.

A cloud of smoke appears before Jack’s eyes, surprising him and causing him to fall backwards into the empty shelves. It burns his eyes, forcing him to shut them, and he rubs the smoke away with the back of his hand. When he opens them it takes him a moment to realize the smoke is coming off of Gabriel’s body, which seems to lose form as the seconds tick by. It doesn’t take long for Gabriel’s body to completely dissipate, replaced with a shadow of his former self. Two red orbs in place of his eyes.

Jack thinks he’s dreaming - or at the very least having a very vivid hallucination. The pain of the shelf digging into his back, however, feels too real for any of this to be a dream. The shadow of Gabriel looms over him, not moving very much but he can feel those bright red eyes on him. They’re not hostile but they’re curious. Searching.

In his panic, Jack says the first thing that comes to mind.

“That stuff they’re pumping into us is wild,” he murmurs, looking the shadow up and down.

Gabriel seems to pause, straightening up just a little bit as if he’s surprised before his form shivers. Shaking with  _ laughter. _ The sound fills the room, sounding as if the man is laughing behind, in front and right next to Jack all at one. At the very least it’s unsettling.

When the sound subsides, Gabriel leans in close to Jack’s face. “Are you scared?”

Smoke puffs out from where Gabriel’s mouth should be, shrouding itself around Jack’s jaw before curling harmlessly around his neck.

“No,” Jack answers, his voice unwavering. He isn’t quite sure if the calm he feels is false or not.

“How do you know I’m not going to hurt you?” Gabriel’s voice is right next to his ear, though Jack stares him in those red orbs.

“If you wanted me dead you could’ve left me to choke on my own vomit by now,” Jack starts, thinking back to the many times Gabriel had shown up at his side during the nights he was left clutching the toilet bowl or curled up on the bathroom floor. “Right?” It’s hardly a question compared to the many continuing to build in his head.

It’s as if Gabriel had silently commanded the smoke to come back, packing in on itself before reforming into a solid body. He’s kneeling in front of Jack, a small smirk on his face replacing the curious look. When he gets up to his feet, he offers Jack a hand.

When Jack takes his hand, Gabriel claps him on the shoulder. He finds his smile just a little ominous.

“You caught me.” 


	2. Chapter 2

It’s as if a fog Jack hadn’t even known clouded their shared living space had been lifted.

Though he isn’t quite sure how much  _ living _ Gabriel does these days, there’s no denying that the man had opened up significantly to Jack in the past couple of weeks since Jack had been rudely shoved into the closet. Just a little bit more talkative, taking interest in Jack just a little bit more. 

Jack had only noticed the lack of tenseness in Gabriel’s voice and posture only after it had left. Like the invisible weight dragging him down had dissipated with his corporeal form. The man wasn’t ready to vomit his emotions to Jack any time soon, or ever perhaps, but there’s an unspoken trust that follows Gabriel now. It clings to the wraith like the black shroud in it’s wake.

Open. Vulnerable. 

The few times following the closet incident where Jack happened to walk in on Gabriel in that state, he had been anything but afraid; or shocked even. A thick black cloud he knew to be Gabriel clung to the ceiling of their room, though unlike the previous time Jack witnessed this, it stayed unmoving.

Inert; as if a thick layer of jet black paint had been brushed across the off-white ceiling. Fear definitely wasn’t one of the things Jack had been feeling in that moment. More like curiosity that only grew when the inky black spread had begun rippling, slowly gathering and pulling towards the middle where it descended to the floor. Ink fading to smoke, and smoke packing into flesh.

Before him stood Gabriel, blinking blearily at Jack for a moment. The back of a hand came up to wipe across one eye. He turned around to sit himself on the couch, leaning over the side to grab the book he had tossed there hours before. Acting as if nothing strange had happened.

_ Don’t ask. _ Gabriel hadn’t even looked towards Jack yet the words didn’t need to be said.

To Jack, that was fine. To Jack, that was trust.

Sometime later Jack had realized that he had walked in on Gabriel napping, because ‘ _ apparently even you need your beauty sleep, huh?’. _ The lighthearted comment had earned him an elbow to the ribs, though Jack caught a glimpse of a smile on Gabriel’s face before the man had turned away. 

He quickly found that what had been extremely strange to him, was normal for Gabriel. And why shouldn’t it be? The man had ice in his veins, smoke in his lungs and a heart that refused to beat. Despite that, Gabriel was still the one turning Jack on his side when he napped after injections in fear of his roommate choking on his vomit in his sleep.

At times the silence is fine if it means coming back to his room, beaten and bruised, to someone waiting for him. So long as there was someone there to drag a blanket over his sleeping form when he inevitably passes out on their shared couch. 

Gabriel is an enigma. That much had never needed to be said right from the start. 

It’s only when Jack walks in on the man sitting cross legged on the floor of the makeshift living room, concentrating intently on the tablet -  _ Jack’s tablet -  _ that even if he had a habit of sticking around waiting for Jack to come back, Jack still hadn’t a clue as to what the man gets up to during the day. The facility is large, respectable, and yet Jack has never seen Gabriel leave the old wing for more than a few moments.

Kneeling down next to Gabriel, Jack peers over his shoulder to find the man on his third attempt on the password. Despite the small red warning below the password box, Jack findings himself smiling to himself as he takes the tablet from Gabriel. It takes him only a few seconds to punch in his password before he’s handing it back to him.

“What?” Jack asks at the raised brows Gabriel is giving him. “Are you surprised my password isn’t  _ ‘password’?” _

“Actually, yeah.” Gabriel turns back to the tablet. He’s not particularly bothered by Jack watching him open up the browser, but there’s still that nagging in the back of the head telling him to force the man out the door - remind him that he’s about to be late for morning drills.

“Not that I mind you using my tablet,” Jack says after a pause. “But what do you need it for?”

He gets a half shrug in response. “I get bored during the day.”

“Couldn’t you use one of the computer in the other wing?” Gabriel’s fingers pause on the screen for a moment. 

“I’ve thought about it,” Gabriel admits. “But they had to have revoked my access years ago when,” he pauses a moment, exhaling audibly. “I’d probably set off a couple alarms if they have an inactive accounting logging in after all these years.”

There’s a moment that passes between them where Jack isn’t quite sure what to say, having unintentionally struck a sore spot, and yet not so explicitly that it warrants an apology without scaring Gabriel back into his shell. Thankfully, Gabriel is the first to speak.

“Don’t worry, I’m just using it to catch up on some reading. Maybe watch a couple of movies,” he tells Jack.

In response, Jack reaches over to grab a stray pen off of the coffee table. Gabriel doesn’t pull his hand back when Jack begins quickly scrawling down a single phrase in the deep blue ink across his ink, though he does give him a curious look.

“‘ _ MollyM1332’?” _ Gabriel reads off his wrist. “That a girlfriend you got waiting for you - Molly?”

“No,” Jack shakes his head though there’s a rose tint to his cheeks. “Molly is our family dog. It’s my tablet password, you know, in case you let it idle for too long and it locks you out.”

Gabriel studies his wrist for a moment before dropping it to his side.

“You’re going to be late, Jack,” Gabriel finally says, checking the time on the top corner of the tablet.

 

 

Perhaps it’s the injections working their nauseating, headache inducing magic, or perhaps there really is something to constant physical training. Jack finds the sessions becoming less and less taxing, and from the color in Gavin’s cheeks he’s not the only one.

Where the first few sessions had left many of these recruits on the ground simmering in a puddle of their own vomit and, on bad days blood, these days they hardly broke a sweat. Gavin had it the worst, though Jack knows his friend is capable of pushing boundaries just as hard as him.

The first session had Gavin without color in his face, the sweat making him look as if he had just taken a shower in his clothing. He had been one of the first to hit the floor, much to his humiliation despite the fact that many of them followed after. 

These days, they’d be lucky to break a sweat. It’s physical and tangible progress and yet it leaves a hunger in the pit of Jack’s stomach. He’s sure he’s not the only one with that itching feeling under his skin.

Jack can’t eat after these sort of sessions. With his blood pumping so hot in his veins, he finds it in his best interest to run a couple laps around the facility with Gavin and a couple other recruits from his wing. At the very least to burn off steam.

Halfway through the run, Jack slows down, excusing himself from the rest of them to catch a breather. There’s seven of them, including Jack. Watching them run up ahead, it’s only then does Jack realize the young woman next door, the one who had picked him up from the floor during the first week, isn’t anywhere to be seen. If he thinks back hard enough, he’d realize he hadn’t seen or heard her moving around lately. As if she had been soundlessly yanked into the shadows by an unseen hand.

Realistically, Jack knows she very likely couldn’t keep up with the program and dropped out very early on. They hadn’t spoken much after she had picked him up off the ground aside from greeting in passing, and yet it leaves a sour taste in his mouth at the thought that he hadn’t even bothered to learn her name.

Vaguely, Jack wonders when the familiar noises of his neighbour moving around next door had become interchangeable with Gabriel’s since his roommate had been nothing but a silent entity during those first few weeks.

To Jack’s far right is the grand, obsidian memorial sitting close to the front gates of the facility. Far above him, orange is already bleeding into the dark blue of night. Gavin and the rest of the recruits are far ahead of him if they hadn’t already headed on inside for dinner. No one would notice if he wandered out just a little bit.

It’s not explicitly against the rules for recruits to wander around the facility grounds, yet Jack feels just a little rebellious casually walking up to the memorial. Sneaking around in the dark. Gabriel would probably laugh at how hard his heart is beating right now.

With the dying light in the sky, it’s fairly difficult to make out any of the names carved into the memorial. Running a single index finger over each name. 

He’s nearly ready to give up his curiosity driven search and just head inside for dinner when his fingers pass over what he thinks might be what he’s looking for. The words are about chest level to him, and though he’s nearly shrouded in thick night air, he  _ knows _ he’s found what he had been looking for.

_ Gabriel Reyes. _

Though it confirms what Gabriel had been silently telling him for weeks now - even after the verbal confirmation, it still brings an unexpected heaviness to Jack’s chest. Perhaps for the fact that he had unwittingly become fond of his roommate, or perhaps because Gabriel hardly looks much older than him.

Swallowing down the lump in his throat, Jack heads back inside.

  
  
  


Fishing around in his pockets for the handful of sugar packets Jack had snuck out of mess, he hands Gabriel his coffee with a small grimace.  _ Black. Oh, but with five scoops of sugar. _ At the very least, Gabriel’s sweet tooth lives on. 

“I still don’t understand how you can drink that stuff,” Jack says softly from behind his own coffee cup. He’s sitting on the couch behind Gabriel, looking over his shoulder at the movie his roommate is halfway through. From the looks of it, Gabriel hadn’t moved an inch since Jack left him this morning.

“Not sure how you can drink yours without,” Gabriel replies evenly.

Leaning back into the cushion of the couch, Jack wonders if he should have offered Gabriel some dinner, though he’s sure his roommate doesn’t  _ need _ to eat. As far as he’s concerned, it’s all texture and flavour. There’s a couple on the tablet screen and Jack finds himself leaning forward with his elbows on his thighs to watch as the woman throws a plate at the man, shattering it behind his head.

“What’s this?” Jack finds himself asking instead.

“Some comedy I found,” Gabriel answers. Jack decides the disinterest in his voice sounds rather forced. Gabriel’s eyes haven’t left the screen since Jack walked in minutes before.

“Romantic comedy?” Jack insists. The man that nearly had his head taken off by a plate is sitting at a bar with a different woman comforting him. Jack can’t really hear the dialogue being exchanged between them but he gathers they said something funny, the corner of Gabriel’s lip twitching upward just the slightest.

“You gonna fight me about it?” Gabriel takes another gulp of his sugar with coffee before setting it down next to him.

“Is it any good?” Jack asks in place of an answer. Scooting off the couch, he finds himself sitting on the floor next to Gabriel. “I can’t even remember the last time I sat down and watched a movie with someone.”

Gabriel continues watching as if he hadn’t heard Jack before he replies.

“You know, neither can I.” Much to Jack’s surprise, he finds the tablet being slid partly into his lap - just enough that he doesn’t have to lean into Gabriel’s shoulder to see the screen.

When Gabriel’s bare arm brushes against Jack’s, it momentarily pulls his attention away from the movie. Jack hadn’t actually felt Gabriel’s bare skin since that first week. Every time after had been when the injections had rendered him incoherent, hardly able to remember the night before aside from the fact that Gabriel had managed to get him back in bed and kept him hydrated.

At this point, the cold isn’t what surprises Jack; just the fact that he’s watched Gabriel dissipate into thin air only to become solid once more moments after. Maybe it’s something he’ll never get used to. He keeps expecting Gabriel to fade away at a moment’s notice - as if there’s a possibility Jack could touch him one day and cause him to fade out of existence. In an attempt to confirm his suspicions, though he knows they’re ridiculous, Jack leans just a little bit into Gabriel’s shoulder.

Gabriel doesn’t notice the sudden proximity between them or the soft exhale Jack releases, and if he does, he doesn’t mention it. Instead, he brings a hand up to his mouth and scrubs a palm over his facial hair.

“Should’ve grabbed popcorn,” Gabriel says in what sounds like almost a sigh. Jack laughs softly.

“Some soda too,” Jack hums thoughtfully. 

“I’d kill for a soda.”

“If I had known it was movie night I might’ve tried to grab some from the kitchen.” Jack pauses for a moment before shifting where he’s sitting. At this point, his coffee is cold - the nearest kettle or microwave all the way out of the wing at mess.

“You can get around without being seen, can’t you?” Jack asks slowly, wary of the fact that his question could be overstepping a boundary.

“Yeah,” Gabriel answers.

“Then how come you haven’t snuck into the kitchens before? I mean, given your...  _ condition _ I can’t imagine it’d be very hard to do.”

At this point, it’s a solid fact that Gabriel just doesn’t leave the old wing. It’s rare for Jack to find Gabriel even leave the room to roam the wing, but it’s been known to happen; often on the nights Jack can’t find sleep himself in his tiny bedroom. Jack finds it hard to imagine having this sort of potential for freedom and not use it to wander the rest of the facility unseen - or better yet, leave the facility altogether.

“ _ My condition _ ,” Gabriel repeats quietly; the words sound bitter in his mouth. He turns to Jack, looking him in the eyes for the first time since the movie ended. “You mean because I’m dead. How come I don’t just… ghost through walls and take what I want. Right?”

Though Jack opens his mouth, the words are caught in his throat. What does he say? What  _ should _ he say? Swallowing down his response, he closes his mouth. 

“How come you don’t just walk out through those front gates?” Gabriel asks, the words biting into Jack’s skin. “No one’s going to stop you.”

“I couldn’t,” Jack finally answers quietly. “They wouldn’t let me come back if I did.”

Gabriel fixes his attention down on the tablet, the screen blank now as he gently thumbs at the power button. Jack belatedly realizes he had mistaken frustration for bitterness behind Gabriel’s words. Frustration that hadn’t been directed at him.

“You could leave,” Jack offers quietly. “You could go anywhere.”

“Could I?” It’s not a question that needs to be answered. “This was my room, Jack. It’s been home for, God, I can’t even remember how long anymore. I don’t think you understand.”

The boundary had been crossed. Crossed, stepped all over, and scuffed. Despite this, Jack finds himself leaning in closer to Gabriel. Taking his icy wrist into his hand and giving it a warm squeeze.

“You’re right, Gabe. I’m not sure I understand.”

Gabriel looks intently into Jack’s blue eyes. As if he wants to explain more but the words aren’t going to come, even if he willed them to. Vaguely, Jack’s aware of the cold palm sliding against his own, squeezing against his before it’s replaced with the tablet.

“Thanks for the coffee, Jack.” The words disappear with Gabriel in a  haze.

* * *

 

It’s a strange feeling. Coming back to his room and expecting to find Gabriel sprawled on the couch. Too many mornings pass where Jack finds his tired  _ ‘good morning’ _ s go unheard in an empty room on his way out. 

The hopeful part of Jack that has remained dominant thus far hopes Gabriel took his advice and took a step outside of the old wing. Solitude isn’t the way for someone to live - or whatever the deathlike equivalent it is that Gabriel does.

It’s not as if Jack hasn’t been seeking him out lately; he’s learned fairly quickly that it’s near impossible to find a ghost that doesn’t want to be found. And even if Gabriel hasn’t left the old wing, there are upper floors in the wing that Jack doesn’t have access to. Locked doors that only a cloud of smoke could squeeze under.

There’s only so many excuses Jack can come up with when he gets caught wandering around a certain area he knows he shouldn’t be in. 

Jack doesn’t know when it happened, but at some point he had woken up one morning and accepted Gabriel had gone. Perhaps it was the morning after a night spent with his skull pounding against cold tiles when he woke up curled on the bathroom floor. Or perhaps it was sometime before.

Jack had stopped searching.

He accepted Gabriel needed time alone and stopped searching when he catches the flicker of a shadow flit past his feet, across the floor and along the walls. Heart stuttering in his chest a little bit, he watches as the grey shadow lingers along the hallway wall for just a moment, waiting for him to follow. 

They come to the very end of the hallway of the old wing where, not only is the door in front of them locked, but neatly boarded off as well. It’s not much of a surprise, Jack had known beforehand that before they had brought in his group of rookies, the old wing was set to be demolished. Many of the rooms they (only Jack, now) occupied had been previously boarded off days before their arrival.

The shadow, Gabriel, stops just before the crack below the door, coming up from the ground like a thick cloud of steam. Curling around his wrist and climbing up the length of of his arm. He lingers along his jawline for just a moment before dropping back to the floor.

The haze swirls around Jack’s legs, closing in tighter, climbing upwards until he’s nothing more than a thick veil covering Jack’s eyes. When Gabriel speaks his voice sounds as if it’s coming from right next to Jack’s ear, words echoing in his head.

_ “Do you trust me? _ ”

What Jack wants to do is respond to Gabriel with the question that’s been burning the inside of his mouth since he suddenly appeared. Instead, he swallows it down and settles for giving the man a short nod, knowing that even if Gabriel can’t see it he can definitely feel it.

The haze that is Gabriel tightens around him, though it doesn’t feel very constricting. Something in the back of his head tells him he shouldn’t move as the light is stolen from his eyes and breath knocked from his lungs. When he opens his eyes again, moments later, there’s the night sky up above him; a star speckled blanket.

Thinking back, Jack vaguely wonders about the silly rumours of recruits being swept off their feet within the first few weeks. Eaten by the shadows in a haunted wing. Apparently, it’s not too far off from the truth.

They’re on the roof of the facility, much too high up for anyone who might be walking around below them to notice them. Next to him is Gabriel, leaning forward with his arms resting on the railing in all his solid glory.

The months Jack has spent in the program have helped him fill out just a little more each week. Arms a little thicker, shoulders just a little broader, and yet Gabriel looks the exact same as the last time Jack saw him a handful of weeks ago. It’s not exactly much of a surprise to Jack at this point, but the realization dampens his mood.

“There used to be an easier way up here,” Gabriel says without looking over at Jack, instead peering over the railing to the pavement below. “Just jump up from the third floor window before they boarded it off.”

“How long ago was that?” Jack comes up beside him to lean against the railing, mirroring Gabriel.

Gabriel shrugs. “I couldn’t tell you. Lost track a while ago.” 

A silence burns between them - slowly, like a single flame eating away at a candle wick. It’s not the first time Jack isn’t sure what to say around Gabriel despite the hours he had spent rehearsing for this moment. Perhaps start with an apology, though he isn’t quite sure what he would be apologizing for. A question maybe, but where does he start?

Gabriel shifts slightly, his arm brushing against Jack’s. How could he be so relaxed when Jack feels as if he could crawl out of his skin at any moment?

“You look like you’ve been sleeping better.” Gabriel is the first to speak.

“I guess I have,” Jack gives him a slight nod. “Aside from injection day, they haven’t been working us as hard.”

“Don’t get used to it, it’s just downtime. They’re letting you guys take it easy before they decide to work you to the bone.”

“That’s comforting,” Jack snorts a small laugh despite himself. “Here I thought I was actually making an improvement.”

“You  _ have _ been,” Gabriel says after a pause. “I’ve seen it.”

“Training’s in the central building, Gabe.”

“It sure is.”

Suddenly the calm Gabriel exudes makes sense. 

The knot in Jack’s chest unwinds itself and suddenly he can breathe again. Whatever apology Jack had boiling on the backburner would just spoil the peace between them. Gabriel must have noticed Jack’s mood lifting because when he turns to face him, it’s with a single brow raised. As if he doesn’t have a clue as to why.

“Don’t give me those eyes,  _ sunshine _ , you’re still a shit shot. Compared to me.”

“Maybe we should go down and see for ourselves sometime then,” Jack gently bumps his side, lowering his voice. “Sounds like you’ve got something to prove.”

“I’ve got years on you, Jack. You sure you wanna be challenging me like that?”

“Sure,” Jack says, pulling away from the railing. 

There’s potted plants attached to one side of the rusted railing, long dead. Vaguely, Jack finds it strange for them to even be up here with no practical means to come up and water them. Unless, of course someone were to come up regularly from the third floor window to water them.

“What other hiding spots are you keeping from me?”

Gabriel huffs a small laugh and Jack swears he sees a haze of smoke escape from his lips.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“So, do you take rookies up here often? Or am I just a special case.”

“Just the thorns in my side.”

When Gabriel turns to him, it’s to lift cold fingers to Jack’s jaw. Stroking just against the stubble there, mimicking the way he had done it before in a less solid state. The laugh Jack had bubbling within him catches in his throat, instead coming out as a soft exhale. Gabriel’s dark eyes hold his.

“A damn thorn in my side,” Gabriel mutters to himself before dropping his hand. “You were right, you know.” It feels like an eternity to Jack when he answers, though it can’t be more than a few seconds.

“About what?”

“No one saw me walk into the kitchens. Like I wasn’t even there.” Sighing, Gabriel shakes his head. “I used to be alright with that. Fading into the background was easy for a long time; but Jack, I wasn’t even  _ trying. _ ”

“I can’t imagine why,” Jack finally says with a small smile. “You’re pretty hard to miss.” 

“Yeah? Pretty easy for you to miss me these past couple of days though, huh?” When Jack’s cheeks light up in a soft blush Gabriel laughs. Though there’s a sense of defeat in the way he drops his shoulders, he sounds  _ happy _ to Jack. If not, at the very least content.

“You saw that?”

“Sure did,  _ sunshine _ .” There’s a quirk in the corner of Gabriel’s lips. “Be careful. Someone might start thinking you like me.”

“I think I could probably live with that.”

**Author's Note:**

> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/0MNIC)


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